Silence stretched. Somewhere behind him a door opened and closed. The smell of boiling nettle and old paper drifted out.
Henrik wiped his ink-stained thumb against his apron. "You'll sleep in the travellers' rooms above the side hall. You'll eat with the others. You'll not remove any volume from the library without my mark. And if you waste my time chasing northern ghost stories through eastern ink, you'll be back on the road before the next market."
"Agreed."
He stepped aside. "Then come in. Leave the horses with the boy at the stable—he answers to Lucas when he bothers answering. Don't touch the high shelves until I've shown you which ones will come down on your head."
---
The library took the breath out of me.
Not because it was grand. It wasn't. The ceilings were low, the light came in thin through the narrow windows, and the shelves had been built and rebuilt until nothing matched.
